"My motto as I live and learn is: dig and be dug in return." -- Langston Hughes

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Who will you empower?

"Three Ways Obama Carried Bush's Tyrannical Torch, in Just One Week: If one were looking for a way to demonstrate how faithfully the Obama administration had carried on the legacy of the Bush administration, this past week takes the cake, and no, I'm not talking about making Bush tax cuts on the middle class permanent. In a matter of four days, President Obama ushered in three landmark decisions that further institutionalized the Bush administration's penchant for abridging civil liberties in the name of national security, all the while making us less safe."

Jonathan Turley, "Minnesota Man Criminally Charged After Filming Police in Public [...] Henderson, 28, was filming Ramsey County deputies arresting a man when his camera was confiscated by a deputy, Jacqueline Muellner, who suddenly announced 'We'll just take this for evidence.' She also warned Henderson that 'If I end up on YouTube, I'm gonna be upset.'"

David Sirota on Why Chuck Hagel terrifies hawks, GOP: "Here's a rule of thumb for understanding Washington politics: On the rare occasion when everything including the kitchen sink gets thrown at a Cabinet nominee to block an appointment, there's a solid chance that the opposition is not merely about the collage of negative headlines. Instead, it's more likely that the opposition is motivated by a deeper belief that the nominee fundamentally threatens the Beltway's Permanent Bipartisan Power Structure™. That is particularly the case when a nominee is seen as a threat to the lucrative business of permanent war - a business whose profit margins, employment footprint across America, campaign contributions and think-tank underwriting make it, by far, the most powerful pillar of that power structure."

Monday, 27 August 2007, David Broder: "Two who could find a third way" - Chuck Hagel and Michael Bloomberg. Both of these guys have been the dream boys of the "Centrists" for a good long time.

Readers of The Sideshow may recall that Chuck Hagel first came to our notice as an owner of the very voting machines that had given him unlikely wins of a Senate seat. And that's one of many reasons why I would prefer not to see Hegal anywhere near government. But the horrible fact is that he may not be quite as terrible as most of Obama's other appointments.

Paul Rosenberg at AlJazeera: "Obama and the transformation illusion: Everyone has an ideology, whether they know it or not. But when your ideology has you - that's when you're an ideologue. It's not a matter of "extremism" but of rigidity and blindness - detachment from reality. Which is why Barack Obama is one of the most ideological presidents we've ever had. And being imprisoned in his "pragmatist" ideology is key to his numerous pragmatic train wrecks, as well his less-noted failures to even take on several really big, really significant problems."

I'm not entirely sure that this interview with Alex Jones was really any loopier than the one Jon Stewart had with Alan Simpson, who just produced a lot of babble when asked to explain his crazy ideas.

Speaking of Jon Stewart, he thinks it's time to talk about gun control: "No one is taking away all the guns. But now I get it. Now I see what is happening. So this is what it is, their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present. We can't even begin to address 30,000 gun deaths that are actually in reality happening in this country every year because a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of imaginary Hitler."

"NRA Vows To Stop Tucson From Destroying Guns" - via Moshe, who said, "Suing to prevent the destruction of these guns demonstrates that for many, our gun culture is not about Constitutional rights, self defense, or an innocent hobby interest in precision machines. Rather, it is a form of what the Hebrew prophets, and the Puritans influenced by them, called idolatry."

re: Replacing Jesse Jackson, Jr In IL-02There are only two significant questions about Mayor Rahmbo: Is he running for Senator or Governor, or straight for President? and How much more blood can he squeeze from this bankrupt city?It never occurred to me that the new Rep wouldn't be owned.